The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: a History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017 by Rashid Khalidi

Author:Rashid Khalidi
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.

The intifada was a spontaneous, bottom-up campaign of resistance, born of an accumulation of frustration and initially with no connection to the formal political Palestinian leadership. As with the 1936–39 revolt, the intifada’s length and extensive support was proof of the broad popular backing that it enjoyed. The uprising was also flexible and innovative, developing a coordinated leadership while remaining locally driven and controlled. Among its activists were men and women, elite professionals and businesspeople, farmers, villagers, the urban poor, students, small shopkeepers, and members of virtually every other sector of society. Women played a central role, taking more and more leadership positions as many of the men were jailed and mobilizing people who were often left out of conventional male-dominated politics.14

Along with demonstrations, the intifada involved tactics ranging from strikes, boycotts, and withholding taxes to other ingenious forms of civil disobedience. Protests sometimes turned violent, often ignited by soldiers inflicting heavy casualties with live ammunition and rubber bullets used against unarmed demonstrators or youths throwing stones. Nevertheless, the uprising was predominantly nonviolent and unarmed, a crucially important factor that helped mobilize sectors of society in addition to the young people protesting in the streets while showing that the entirety of Palestinian society under occupation opposed the status quo and supported the intifada.

The First Intifada was an outstanding example of popular resistance against oppression and can be considered as being the first unmitigated victory for the Palestinians in the long colonial war that began in 1917. Unlike the 1936–39 revolt, the intifada was driven by a broad strategic vision and a unified leadership, and it did not exacerbate internal Palestinian divisions.15 Its unifying effect and largely successful avoidance of firearms and explosives—in contrast to the Palestinian resistance movement of the 1960s and 1970s—helped to make its appeal widely heard internationally, leading to a profound and lasting positive impact on both Israeli and world public opinion.

This was no accident: the intifada was explicitly aimed not only at mobilizing Palestinians and Arabs, but also at shaping Israeli and world perceptions. That this was a key objective was clear from many of the tactics used, and also from the sophisticated and effective communications strategies of those who were able to explain to international audiences what the intifada meant. These included articulate and worldly activists and intellectuals inside Palestine, such as Hanan ‘Ashrawi, Haydar ‘Abd al-Shafi, Raja Shehadeh, Iyad al-Sarraj, Ghassan al-Khatib, Zahira Kamal, Mustafa Barghouti, Rita Giacaman, Raji Sourani, and many others. Those outside of Palestine, among them Edward Said and Ibrahim Abu Lughod, had a similar impact. By the early 1990s, the unified Palestinian stance had successfully made it clear that the occupation was untenable, at least as it had functioned in its first two decades.

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